Good moral core (Re: Dirty Harry/Clean Harry)

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 117156


--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "dungrollin" 
<spotthedungbeetle at h...> wrote:

> The ability to empathise is the difference between them.  
Where you  think this ability comes from depends upon your 
views, (and how much  you've thought about it).  
<snip>
 
> With this in mind, Harry being brought up in a wizarding family 
as  a `pampered little prince' *could* have had a disastrous
 effect on him; and Riddle having had a loving family *could* 
have  changed a great deal.
> 
> What JKR would say, however, I have no idea.
> 

Pippin:
I think she would say that  we can't know.  To paraphrase 
Dumbledore's words in PoA, the consequences of our heredity 
and our environment are always so complicated, so diverse, that  
assigning causes to our choices is a difficult business indeed.

 Which is why, IMO, Dumbledore says it is  choices  ( and not  
heredity or environment)  that we should consider when we are 
trying to understand  what someone is.  That is also the basis for 
extending compassion even to someone as downright evil as 
Riddle/Voldemort.  We cannot know that we wouldn't have done 
the same thing in his place.


Pippin